smoke nazis
Everyone knows I am selling the condo, right? Maybe I will go back to Los Angeles. I have thought about that. Or maybe I will stay here in Seattle. Or maybe I will go somewhere completely different. I have not decided yet. It all depends on whether anyone thinks this condo is so spacious and nice they just have to buy it and I figure there is no point looking till then. But one way or the other the dogs are too old to live in a neighborhood without grass and maybe I am too because I am for sure tired of downtown. So --
I am dealing with real estate agents.
And impromptu visits from strangers who only give you a minute's notice.
AND I have to answer the phone ALL THE TIME.
I rarely answer the phone at all. But some dumb real estate agents call from "private" lines. Do not ask why a real estate company would even list its number as "private." That is beyond me. But they do so when the phone rings, even if the call identifier does not recognize the number or even tell me who is calling, I have to answer. And say, "Oh you will be here in five minutes?"
AND THE CONDO HAS TO BE CLEAN AND SHOW WORTHY EVERY SINGLE SECOND.
That is traumatic to me. I like to throw socks. But has also inspired this episode of thoughts --
SMOKE NAZIS
Real estate agents get really nervous when you smoke. Apparently all prospective buyers are non-smokers and can tell if you are a smoker in a second and the property is despoiled and unbuyable for centuries to come. Sort of like nuclear waste sites, though no one has yet determined the half life of cigarette smoke.
This is funny to me because, if I was buying this property, I would be more worried about two large dogs on off white carpet and what they might or might not do to that off white carpet before escrow closed, myself. But no, real estate agents assure me, the problem will be smoke.
Apparently, if a smoker has lived in a residence, you have to do all kinds of stuff. Like lead coat the walls, replace all the blinds and carpeting, bring in Navy SEALs to clear the air ducts. Pretty much the same stuff that goes into cleaning up an EPA Superfund site.
Um. Hello? Have people gone completely unsane?
If you are buying anything pre-the-anti-smoking-PC-craze, someone smoked in the building. I'm sorry, they just did. Check Matt Helm films. But okay --
I have a few things to say here.
First off, I am an unapologetic smoker. I like smoking. I'll quit if I get pregnant. That's it. And smoke nazis can bite me if they don't like it.
Each and every smoke nazi owns a car and pumps crud I have to breathe into the air every day. I know this because I live four stories above a busy street and have to wash down and Fabreeze my window screens to get rid of that smell.
Smoke nazis use aerosols without blinking. Check your cupboards for the cans.
Smoke nazis go to the dry cleaner without a thought about the chemicals dry cleaners use -- which are at this very moment underground in a tank that has sprung leaks and will go super fund any day. (Hello, can you spell "plume" and "water table"? Better yet, do you know what they mean?)
Smoke nazis get gasoline from a gas station that likewise has tanks circa 1930's and, likewise, is pouring carcinogens into the water table.
Smoke nazis never give a second thought to freon. That fun stuff in their cars, refrigerators, and air conditioners -- not to mention used for various software applications they have never heard of and won't be reading up on any time soon.
When smoke nazis think ozone, they think rain forest the end. And when they buy "organic fruit" at double the price they forget (or never knew in the first place) while it's illegal to use DDT in the U.S., the U. S. is the largest manufacturer and importer of DDt worldwide. And you can bet every DDT manufacturer is dumping DDT places daily you just do not want to contemplate and THEN there is illegal crop dusting happening here every day which no one mentions.
What are smoke nazis doing about all that, hmmm?
Harrassing me about my cigarettes. Which I pay a PC luxury tax on that would inspire Samuel Adams to organize a new tea party. And, I am pretty sure, if you add up what luxury taxes on cigarettes equal and compare it to what the government gives cancer research? Would resemble municians spending more any day because what they are paying on cancer research is pretty damn small and smoke nazis would know this if they ever checked. Which they don't. So bite me again.
But there is more to it than that. There are actual real estate issues. Like, a residence a smoker has lived in has paint that is hard to "touch up."
Um. Don't take this too hard or anything, but paint older than a month is hard to "touch up" period because PAINT AGES. (Who knew?) And changes color regardless of smoker or non-smoker residents and because color matches are not perfect and you have to get the same batch number or NO EXACT MATCH.
Also. Apparently. Carpets and blinds are ruined by contact with a smoker.
Um, right.
Look. This is not the Saw Blade Tavern. This is where I live. I have Windex. I have 409. I have Mr. Clean. I actually own ionizers. Just because I smoke, that does not mean I want to live in a smoke stained galaxy or that I do not clean. Cripes. I probably clean more than smoke nazis since I actually am aware the place I live in needs to be cleaned and smoke nazis appear to think their clean living style means they do not.
Basically --
Nobody walking through a door of a place I'm selling would know I smoke except for the belligerant ash tray collection I leave out. It does show if you walk in during a writing binge -- when I smoke like hell -- and especially shows if I open the door cigarette in hand. It doesn't, if I do not want it obvious.
People (read smoke nazis) who know I smoke will swear this is not true. If they know me. I am, after all, a belligerant smoker. If they know me they will know I smoke. But, if I have done the house (hello Fabreze!) people don't know unless I toss ashtrays for sport. I know this because real estate agents who swear they are "cigarette sensitive" haven't known until I told them.
So. Ride a bike and I'll talk to you.
Till then.
Bite me.
Love and Kisses,
Your Adams Girl
PS: I am doing some site updates and things may be a little rocky. If anyone hits a blind link write me so I know about it.
